1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technique for developing undeveloped image data created by a digital camera.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, users of digital still cameras record RAW image data (undeveloped image data) into a memory card, which directly represents the amount of incident light that entered into an image pickup device, such as a CCD or the like, that is provided in the digital still camera. The RAW image data recorded into the memory card is thereafter converted into image data conforming to an image-data format such as JPEG, TIFF, or the like, or into printing image data by a development processing application or the like that is installed on a personal computer. In the following description, converted image data may be referred to as actually developed image data. Development techniques of the related art are described in, for example, JP-A-8-298669, JP-A-2006-295815, and JP-A-2006-227698.
In the above-described conversion of RAW image data into image data conforming to an image-data format, known as “development processing” or more simply as “development”. The picture quality of actually developed image data is greatly affected by the processing parameters used in the course of the development processing. The processing parameters are hereafter referred to as development conditions. For this reason, unless appropriate development conditions are set, the picture quality of the actually developed image data can be unsatisfactory, which is a problem that has not been fully solved by the related art. Even if development conditions are suitable for some RAW image data, those development conditions are not always suitable for other RAW images because shooting conditions (i.e., photographing conditions), under which RAW images are taken, differ from one shooting location to another.